Prada Puts the Skirt First in Milan, and the Plain Reads the Signal

Milan Fashion Week opened this week with Prada giving the skirt star billing, according to the Guardian, which reported that the collection swerved both trousers and dresses to build its silhouette around the knee-length skirt. The paper described Miuccia Prada's personal uniform — a knee-length skirt, A-line or pleated, most often with a plain sweater and kitten heels — as the starting point of a formula that, in the Guardian's words, once again spun gold for the fashion house.

The report places the pairing of Prada with the Belgian designer Raf Simons at the centre of the collection's reception. According to the Guardian, the two have worked the same territory before, and the paper frames the skirt-led show as a continuation rather than a departure.

Milan Fashion Week is a fixed point in the city's calendar and, by extension, in the wider northern Italian economy of textiles, leather and logistics that supplies it. The Guardian's account is of a show that made a single garment do the work of a collection.